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Post by patricklondon on Sept 20, 2011 13:05:30 GMT
I'm surprised I didn't mention this before. BBC Radio4 has a regular programme "Poetry Please" which you can listen to on the internet: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qp7q
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Post by lola on Sept 20, 2011 21:14:59 GMT
Thank you all.
This is a refreshing spot.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Sept 21, 2011 10:21:35 GMT
John Keats : Ode To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, - While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Sept 21, 2011 10:25:14 GMT
At Lunchtime: A Story Of Love .
by Roger McGough
When the bus stopped suddenly to avoid damaging a mother and child in the road, the young lady in the green hat sitting opposite was thrown across me, and not being one to miss an opportunity i started to make love with all my body.
At first she resisted saying that it was too early in the morning and too soon after breakfast and that anyway she found me repulsive. But when i explained that this being a nuclear age, the world was going to end at lunchtime, she took off her green hat, put her bus ticket in her pocket and joined in the exercise.
The bus people, and there were many of them, were shocked and surprised and amused and annoyed, but when the word got around that the world was coming to an end at lunchtime, they put their pride in their pockets with their bus tickets and made love one with the other. And even the bus conductor, being over, climbed into the cab and struck up some sort of relationship with the driver.
That night, on the bus coming home, we were all a little embarrassed, especially me and the young lady in the green hat, and we all started to say in different ways how hasty and foolish we had been. But then, always having been a bit of a lad, i stood up and said it was a pity that the world didn;t nearly end every lunchtime and that we could always pretend. And then it happened…….
Quick as a crash we all changed partners and soon the bus was acquiver with white mothball bodies doing naughty things.
And the next day And everyday In every bus In every street In every town In every country
people pretended that the world was coming to an end at lunchtime. It still hasn’t Although in a way it has.
from Selected Poems, 2006 at Penguin Books.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Sept 21, 2011 10:29:55 GMT
another favourite of Roger McGough's
Let Me Die A Youngman's Death
Let me die a youngman's death not a clean and inbetween the sheets holywater death not a famous-last-words peaceful out of breath death
When I'm 73 and in constant good tumour may I be mown down at dawn by a bright red sports car on my way home from an allnight party
Or when I'm 91 with silver hair and sitting in a barber's chair may rival gangsters with hamfisted tommyguns burst in and give me a short back and insides
Or when I'm 104 and banned from the Cavern may my mistress catching me in bed with her daughter and fearing for her son cut me up into little pieces and throw away every piece but one
Let me die a youngman's death not a free from sin tiptoe in candle wax and waning death not a curtains drawn by angels borne 'what a nice way to go' death
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 26, 2011 22:29:14 GMT
Sheesh, Cheery!
I was so deeply engaged and moved by the Keats poem that I started not to read the others right afterward. But just a peek drew me in. Fabulous, fabulous choices, all three. Thanks so much for posting these.
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Post by patricklondon on Oct 29, 2011 14:52:43 GMT
To celebrate the election as Ireland's President of Michael D. Higgins, a poet (well, mainly politician, who has tried for the Presidency before, but he is also a poet) , here is the poem of his that has been a gift to the headline writers - since, in a sense, his time has indeed come:
When Will My Time Come
When will my time come for scenery And will it be too late? After all Decades ago I was never able To get excited About filling the lungs with ozone On Salthill Prom.
And when the strangers To whom I gave a lift Spoke to me of the extraordinary Light in the Western sky; I often missed its changes. And, later, when words were required To intervene at the opening of Art Exhibitions, It was not the same.
What is this tyranny of head that stifles The eyes, the senses, All play on the strings of the heart.
And, if there is a healing, It is in the depth of a silence, Whose plumbed depths require A journey through realms of pain That must be faced alone. The hero, setting out, Will meet an ally at a crucial moment. But the journey home Is mostly alone.
When my time comes I will have made my journey And through all my senses will explode The evidence of light And air and water, fire and earth.
I live for that moment.
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Post by lola on Apr 6, 2012 9:45:33 GMT
I love your choice of poems, Patrick.
Since it's April, how about a sonnet? 104's a good one.
To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived: For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred; Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
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Post by lola on Apr 17, 2012 0:48:13 GMT
Since Mark quotes it( I had to look it up), and since it contains some nicely turned phrases, and since it's April:
JERUSALEM by William Blake
And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold; Bring me my arrows of desire; Bring me my spear; O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land.
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Post by lugg on May 5, 2012 6:05:06 GMT
"I Am" I am black. I am white. I am all skin in between. I am young. I am old. I am each age that has been. I am scrawny. I am well fed. I am starving for attention. I am famous. I am cryptic. I am hardly worth the mention. I am short. I am height. I am any frame or stature. I am smart. I am challenged. I am striving for a future. I am able. I am weak. I am some strength. I am none. I am being. I am thoughts. I am all things, said and done. I am born. I am dying. I am dust of humble roots. I am grace. I am pain. I am labor of willed fruits. I am a slave. I am free. I am bonded to my life. I am rich. I am poor. I am wealth amid strife. I am a shadow. I am glory. I am hiding from my shame. I am hero. I am loser. I am yearning for a name. I am empty. I am proud. I am seeking my tomorrow. I am growing. I am fading. I am hope amid the sorrow. I am certain. I am doubtful. I am desperate for solutions. I am leader. I am student. I am fate and evolutions. I am spirit. I am voice. I am memories not recalled. I am chance. I am cause. I am effort, blocks and walls. I am him. I am her. I am reasons without rhymes. I am past. I am nearing. I am present in all times. I am many. I am no one. I am seasoned by each being. I am me. I am you. I am all souls now decreeing. I am
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2013 17:33:13 GMT
I had not read this until today Lugg. Thank you. This I wrote during a grim holiday season of late.
COLD DREAMS Winding through my hair, aspirations like dreams; A fierce arctic wind prevails and spins itself into a barbed wire fence; hungry, greedy birds greet, line the trees of the ice coated trees speaking dialects with their chirps, lining up like dirty laundry; eyes on the prize only the eternal one will seize and possess, their mouths aligned with the horizons crooked edge. Teary eyes from the cold and it's sorrow are formed; The stars begin to smear themselves accross the sky; without the moon, the barren land bathes in darkness.
NOLA, 1/1/2013
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2013 18:47:10 GMT
I may have posted this earlier on, not this particular poem but, the fact that Margaret Atwood, a Canadian novelist of much repute is actually more of a poetess than most people realize. She has several collections of poetry of which I have a few. I have found her poetry to be a great inspiration to my own writing.
UP
You wake up filled with dread. There seems no reason for it, there is birdsong, you can't get out of bed.
It's something about the crumpled sheets hanging over the edge like jungle foliage, the terry slippers gaping their dark pink mouths for your feet, the unseen breakfast- some of it in the refrigerator you do not dare to open- you will not dare to eat.
What prevents you? The future. The future tense, immense as outer space. No. Nothing so simple. The past,, its destiny and drowned events pressing you down, like sea water, like gelatin filling your lungs instead of air.
Forget all that and let's get up. Try moving your arm. Try moving your head. Pretend the house is on fire and you must run or burn. No, that one's useless. It's never worked before.
Where is it coming from, this echo, this huge No that surrounds you, silent as the folds of the yellow curtains, mute as the cheerful
Mexican bowl with its cargo of mummified flowers? (You choose the colors of the sun, not the dried neutrals of shadow. God knows you've tried.)
Now here's a good one: you're lying on your deathbed. You have one hour to live. Who is it, exactly, you have needed all these years to forgive?
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Post by mez on Aug 24, 2013 16:51:51 GMT
I've enjoyed reading this thread.
Here's a poem I first saw years ago and only came across again a couple of days ago. It always puts a smile on my face. ***
The Land of Counterpane by Robert Louis Stevenson
When I was sick and lay a-bed, I had two pillows at my head, And all my toys beside me lay, To keep me happy all the day.
And sometimes for an hour or so I watched my leaden soldiers go, With different uniforms and drills, Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;
And sometimes sent my ships in fleets All up and down among the sheets; Or brought my trees and houses out, And planted cities all about.
I was the giant great and still That sits upon the pillow-hill, And sees before him, dale and plain, The pleasant land of counterpane.
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Post by mossie on Aug 24, 2013 17:52:15 GMT
Here is another philosophical piece of old Omar Khayyam
Ah, fill the Cup:---what boots it to repeat How Time is slipping underneath our Feet: Unborn TO-MORROW, and dead YESTERDAY, Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!
38
One Moment in Annihilation's Waste, One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste--- The Stars are setting and the Caravan Starts for the Dawn of Nothing---Oh, make haste!
39
How long, how long, in infinite Pursuit Of This and That endeavour and dispute? Better be merry with the fruitful Grape Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
40
You know, my Friends, how long since in my House For a new Marriage I did make Carouse: Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
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Post by htmb on Aug 25, 2013 2:22:43 GMT
From Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman I exist as I am—that is enough; If no other in the world be aware, I sit content; And if each and all be aware, I sit content. One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself; And whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait. My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite; I laugh at what you call dissolution; And I know the amplitude of time.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 31, 2013 6:18:19 GMT
Seamus Heaney
In Memory of David Hammond
The door was open and the house was dark Wherefore I called his name, although I knew The answer this time would be silence
That kept me standing listening while it grew Backwards and down and out into the street Where as I’d entered (I remember now)
The streetlamps too were out. I felt, for the first time there and then, a stranger, Intruder almost, wanting to take flight
Yet well aware that here was no danger, Only withdrawal, a not unwelcoming Emptiness, as in a midnight hangar
On an overgrown airfield in high summer.
Granta Magazine published this to mark Seamus Haney's death.
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Post by lugg on Aug 31, 2013 6:54:45 GMT
I had been trying to decide which poem to post too. So here is another by Heaney
Casualty
He would drink by himself And raise a weathered thumb Towards the high shelf, Calling another rum And blackcurrant, without Having to raise his voice, Or order a quick stout By a lifting of the eyes And a discreet dumb-show Of pulling off the top; At closing time would go In waders and peaked cap Into the showery dark, A dole-kept breadwinner But a natural for work. I loved his whole manner, Sure-footed but too sly, His deadpan sidling tact, His fisherman’s quick eye And turned observant back.
Incomprehensible To him, my other life. Sometimes, on the high stool, Too busy with his knife At a tobacco plug And not meeting my eye, In the pause after a slug He mentioned poetry. We would be on our own And, always politic And shy of condescension, I would manage by some trick To switch the talk to eels Or lore of the horse and cart Or the Provisionals.
But my tentative art His turned back watches too: He was blown to bits Out drinking in a curfew Others obeyed, three nights After they shot dead The thirteen men in Derry. PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday Everyone held His breath and trembled.
II
It was a day of cold Raw silence, wind-blown surplice and soutane Rained-on, flower-laden Coffin after coffin Seemed to float from the door Of the packed cathedral Like blossoms on slow water. The common funeral Unrolled its swaddling band, Lapping, tightening Till we were braced and bound Like brothers in a ring.
But he would not be held At home by his own crowd Whatever threats were phoned, Whatever black flags waved. I see him as he turned In that bombed offending place, Remorse fused with terror In his still knowable face, His cornered outfaced stare Blinding in the flash.
He had gone miles away For he drank like a fish Nightly, naturally Swimming towards the lure Of warm lit-up places, The blurred mesh and murmur Drifting among glasses In the gregarious smoke. How culpable was he That last night when he broke Our tribe’s complicity? ‘Now, you’re supposed to be An educated man,’ I hear him say. ‘Puzzle me The right answer to that one.’
III I missed his funeral, Those quiet walkers And sideways talkers Shoaling out of his lane To the respectable Purring of the hearse... They move in equal pace With the habitual Slow consolation Of a dawdling engine, The line lifted, hand Over fist, cold sunshine On the water, the land Banked under fog: that morning I was taken in his boat, The Screw purling, turning Indolent fathoms white, I tasted freedom with him. To get out early, haul Steadily off the bottom, Dispraise the catch, and smile As you find a rhythm Working you, slow mile by mile, Into your proper haunt Somewhere, well out, beyond...
Dawn-sniffing revenant , Plodder through midnight rain, Question me again
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 1, 2013 6:41:30 GMT
What a feat, Lugg, to find the perfect poem to illustrate exactly Heaney's greatness as a poet.
Devastating.
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Post by questa on Sept 11, 2013 12:46:47 GMT
A poem attributed to the orthodox imam, al-Shafi’I and quoted in the introduction to Habibah’s edition of the “Travels” of Ibn Battutah. (14th Century)Travel! Set out and head for pastures new- Life tastes the richer when you’ve road worn feet. No water that stagnates is fit to drink, For only that which flows is truly sweet. No lion that spurned the hunt could catch its prey, No arrow unreleased could earn a score. A sun that hung immobile in the sky Would soon become a universal bore. Sandal’s mere firewood in its native grove, Gold is but dust, unmined within the lode. Things that are stationary have little worth: They only gain their value on the road. I took this from the book “Travels with a Tangerine” by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.Ibn Battutah (also Battuta) was a native of Tangiers who “out-Marco’d” Marco Polo.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 14, 2013 14:25:12 GMT
Love, Questa. It's a good poem about travel that can also be read as a caution to keep the mind active. I appreciate the introduction to Tim Mackintosh-Smith -- just looked him up on Wikipedia.
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Post by patricklondon on Nov 10, 2013 10:59:27 GMT
Remembrance Sunday here today, so here are a couple from a recent Guardian commemorative miscellany: One is perhaps Heaney's last poem: In a field
And there I was in the middle of a field, The furrows once called "scores' still with their gloss, The tractor with its hoisted plough just gone
Snarling at an unexpected speed Out on the road. Last of the jobs, The windings had been ploughed, furrows turned
Three ply or four round each of the four sides Of the breathing land, to mark it off And out. Within that boundary now
Step the fleshy earth and follow The long healed footprints of one who arrived From nowhere, unfamiliar and de-mobbed,
In buttoned khaki and buffed army boots, Bruising the turned-up acres of our back field To stumble from the windings' magic ring
And take me by a hand to lead me back Through the same old gate into the yard Where everyone has suddenly appeared,
All standing waiting.and this by Carol Ann Duffy: An Unseen
I watched love leave, turn, wave, want not to go, depart, return; late spring, a warm slow blue of air, old-new. Love was here; not; missing, love was there; each look, first, last.
Down the quiet road, away, away, towards the dying time, love went, brave soldier, the song dwindling; walked to the edge of absence; all moments going, gone; bells through rain
to fall on the carved names of the lost. I saw love's child uttered, unborn, only by rain, then and now, all future past, an unseen. Has forever been then? Yes, forever has been.www.theguardian.com/books/interactive/2013/oct/26/war-poets-1914-carol-anne-duffy-seamus-heaney
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 10, 2013 19:03:35 GMT
Ah -- perfect, Patrick!
I'd recently read Heaney's In a Field, and am glad to see it again.
My introduction to Carol Ann Duffy was on this thread, when you announced her appointment as Poet Laureate. This exquisite, infinitely moving poem shows her greatness. What a freight of beauty and sadness in fifteen short lines.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2013 16:07:05 GMT
Lovely selections Patrick. Thank you. I recently purchased a used copy of some of Heaney's poems.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2013 13:44:02 GMT
I have recently started writing poetry again of late. It has been awhile since I have had the creative urge. I almost always write in the early, early a.m.
White Space
knowing you need to be in your immediate distance I explore white space
profile shadow aura
imagining the unseen embracing the intangible this gift of contradictions
speaking to you even when I can not speak with you
New Orleans, LA, 12/13
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 1, 2014 2:13:19 GMT
Finally read your profoundly lovely poem, Casimira. Thank you so much for posting it here.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2014 13:05:59 GMT
Thank you Bixa. That means so much to me especially coming from you. I am my own worst critic. I am just so relieved that the creative flow has returned.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 2, 2014 18:06:38 GMT
The fact that a person can produce poetry just knocks me out. Your poem economically speaks volumes. It must be horrible when that creative wellspring is blocked.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2014 15:09:23 GMT
Again, that means so very much to me Bixa, thank you.
In the days surrounding my recent creative surge as it were, I wrote this poem. I originally wasn't going to post it and only shared it with one other person.
As some of you know, my mother passed away in the later part of 2010. I spent 7 weeks in her cottage alone, clearing it out.
I had not returned there since driving down that driveway of my birthplace until recently.
I have been to NY since but, had not made the trek out there as I did not feel emotionally equipped to do so.
On my recent rip to NY I did return to my hometown and yes, to my mother's house.
It was very cathartic and yes, emotional, but in a good way.
I wrote this poem almost 24 hours after that visit.
I am now ready to share it with anyone who cares to read it and try to understand the impact of it all.
Threshold
Well I remember her holding me, rocking me awash in soft silent darkness and sound
Before I was born I breathed in her water salt on my skin my body becoming
A child I felt breathed in me too well I remember crying out MAMA
At the last threshold well I hope to remember that same reservoir home of all waters
Bridgehampton, NY , 12/2013
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 12, 2014 17:22:02 GMT
Crying. Absolutely beautiful.
Thank you so much for letting us see that exquisite poem.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2014 15:12:58 GMT
Thank you Bixa. I titled it Threshold because it was while walking up the front steps that the emotional surge overtook me. Driving up the driveway brought on a surge of emotions but, it was walking up those steps...
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